News and information

Stunning report: Something huge detected deep in space

Scientists have detected something amazing from deep in the outer reaches of space, and it could have a massive impact on the future of physics.

Scientists have just made a big, big discovery in space, and it could further advance our understanding of physics. A new paper published recently claims that LIGO has detected its third gravitational wave, the first of which sent shock waves through the scientific world when it was confirmed in 2015.

This gravitational wave is believed to have been caused by two black holes smashing into each other inside a globular cluster of hundreds of thousands of densely packed stars. Much to their surprise, scientists found that the centers of these clusters had dozens of black holes, the highest concentration of these strange and mysterious objects of anywhere in the universe.

Studying gravitational waves could teach us a lot more about the origins of these fascinating star clusters, and also tell us the fundamentals of how galaxies are constructed. Gravitational waves could be the key to unlocking the very basics of physics itself.

“The observation and interpretation of yet another LIGO signal, GW170104, confirms the success of our theoretical program to model binary black holes,” said Alessandra Buonanno in a statement. Buonanno is a UMD College Park Professor of Physics and LSC principal investigator who also has an appointment as Director at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics in Potsdam, Germany.

“For the third LIGO signal we could gather some evidence that at least one black hole might be rotating in a direction misaligned with the overall orbital motion–a spin configuration favored by some astrophysical formation scenarios of binary black holes” Buonanno added.